The sky is very gray today. I can't even detect the sun in the sky at all. It's lunchtime, and my freshly-scrubbed house is almost dark inside. But that's fine with me. I love the calm feeling of a clean room with its lights off.
I'm sitting here at the table, eating my healthy lunch of cottage cheese and grape fruit. I'm trying to ride on the coattails of my sisters who all seem to be very motivated to make healthy changes in 2018. We have a text group to support each other, and honestly, when I go throughout my day, I imagine each of them cheering me on to eat healthy and exercise. But mostly I just want to text them all because I'm a little lonely for my family.
I cried a bit this morning, right in the middle of my cleaning. Owen has been frustrating me quite a bit lately. He is so very smart. And he has such a strong, dominating personality. He is nearly the smallest brother, and the fifth child in our family, but he's ready to put up his dukes if anyone challenges him. I've tried calming him, wrestling him away from a fight, talking him down, pulling him away, shouting, and I've even tried putting up my own dukes. He turns toward me, his beloved mama, the one he wants to hug and kiss and stroke her hair all day, and he puts up his fists, ready to fight me. I always pause, "Owen, look how much bigger I am than you..." I'm flabbergasted that he is willing to fight. He's even willing to fight Greg, if he feels like he needs to.
He came at me. I held him off and sat down to be at his level. He charged me again, like an angry bull. I clenched my fist just as he jumped at me, and before I knew it, my fist sunk into his little tummy. He fell off of me and dissolved into tears. "You almost killed me, Mom!" he sobbed. "I hate you!" My heart broke a bit, right there. I used all of my loving tactics, every last trick I had in the motherhood bag. I talked to him until I couldn't think of another thing to say. I don't know if any of it helped. But, we hugged and said sorry, and had a long talk about being kind and obedient.
That was the other day. So, today when he was making Lance scream like a banshee, and I could not get Owen to stop bothering Lance, and Owen turned at me like he was ready to fight. I started to cry and ran out the laundry room door into the cold, winter morning. I can still feel the feeling of my fist colliding with his little tummy the other day. Please, I don't want to be physical with him, I prayed.
I took some deep breaths. I looked at my sad, sorry fruit trees. They haven't grown an inch since we planted them four years ago. Why don't I rip them out? I wondered. Every time we talk about it, I hesitate. Give them one more chance, I hear myself saying. We even had a professional arborist come out to the house. He told us the soil was all wrong in that space, and that those trees were bad and would never amount to anything. But for some reason, they still sit there in the ground, greening up in the spring, flowering in the summer, acting like they might produce something, teasing us with a piece of fruit or two, and dropping their leaves in the fall. What will I do when I rip them out? Throw them in the trash? I sighed and went back in the house.
Owen and Lance had calmed down, and I'm pretty amazed they hadn't followed me outside. Still feeling super frustrated, I laid down on my bedroom floor, tears seeping out from under my eyelids. Lance kept asking me if I was hurt, but Owen crawled over to me. Pretty soon, his little hand was rubbing my back. He kept telling me that he was sorry, promising to be nice, and asking me if I was okay. And all I could think about was his little hand going up and down along my back.
"Hug, Mom?" Owen finally asked me.
I'm so embarrassed that my first thought was, No! I'm still mad at you! But then I came to my senses. I promised myself a long time ago, that I would always forgive a child who is genuinely saying sorry. Always. Immediately. Especially a little child. So, I wiped up my tears. I sat up. And we hugged. Oh, I had a few things to talk to him about. But my tone wasn't a reprimanding one.
I don't always know how to be the mom. That is so frustrating for me. I have to try things and work my way through the problems. And just when I perfect a certain technique, another child comes along and reacts a completely different way. I have to start all over trying to figure it out.
Owen is one of my most loving kids. He is very aware of emotions and how to please me. I don't know why he has been more difficult lately. At first, I thought it was Christmas break, and all of the excitement. But now I'm home thinking deeply about it. What is making him angry? What is making him purposely pester his brothers? Could he want my attention so badly that he is willing to fight me for it?
I have been trying so hard to give him one-on-one attention. I have played Catan with him, alone, so many times over the last few days. I don't know if other six year olds can master that game AND be the banker at the same time, and handle all of the complicated rules, but Owen can! He is so dang smart. He thinks he knows everything about everything. And he's using that smart brain to try to be in charge of this whole family of eight!! And really, he just might be that smart.
Somehow, I have to help him channel his smarts, and his massive leadership inclinations (ha ha), toward something good. He's definitely a worker. Put him in charge of the dinner dishes, and he will do it all! He just needs to feel that he's in charge.
I don't know, but I do know that I'm parenting on purpose. And I will spend some extra time on my knees prayerfully thinking about how to be the mother to this determined six year old.
He's gone to kindergarten now. And we held up our hands in a heart shape to each other to say goodbye. The other day, I told him that my heart was breaking, and he said, Mom, hearts don't really break like that. And I said, Well, it sure feels like it! Then I held up my hands in the shape of a heart and said, It feels like this. And I pulled my hands apart. When we said sorry and hugged each other, he asked if it felt like this, and he held his hands back together in a heart shape. Yes, I told him. Thank you for fixing my heart.
As he jumped out of the car an hour ago, he said, "Don't let your heart break at all! I love you, Mom!" His hands went up into the little heart shape before he turned, happily, and ran up the sidewalk.
And all I could think is how pieces of my heart live in the bodies of these six little people. And I'm completely at the mercy of them. My heart beats for them. It grows as they grow. It aches for them. And yes, they all have the ability to break my heart.
But I love these little souls with every bit of myself. So, I will lean on my Savior for help. And as long as my heart beats, I will keep trying to be the mother these precious children deserve.
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